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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28044063">She was one of the Few</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamisacribus/pseuds/flamisacribus'>flamisacribus</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Downton Abbey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Male-Female Friendship, anna being Very Sweet to Thomas bc he deserves it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:21:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,049</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28044063</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamisacribus/pseuds/flamisacribus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After Sybil Crawley's death, Thomas Barrow receives an unexpected act of kindness.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Thomas Barrow &amp; Anna Bates</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>She was one of the Few</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Set in 3x05 when anna is comforting Thomas after sybil dies</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Anna hesitantly took her hand away from Thomas's arm and asked gingerly, "is there anything i can do to help you?" </p><p>"Not really. Maybe if you could just.. stay with me for a few minutes," Thomas said softly, ashamed to be asking someone for comfort. </p><p>But Anna nodded and put her hand back on his arm in a gesture of comfort as he began to cry softly again. After another few minutes, she offered to take him into Mrs. Hughes' sitting room so he could sit down somewhere and have some tea, and there they could talk. </p><p>He accepted her offer rather meekly, with a small nod of his head in between his tears. Anna put an arm around his shoulders and they walked silently to the head housekeeper's sitting room. </p><p>Anna turned on one of the electric lamps and Thomas sat down while she went to go make him a cup of tea. While she was making it in the other room, she pondered over what Thomas had told her earlier. She had never really thought of Thomas as having had a particularly difficult life. She just thought of him as the rude, stuck up footman that nobody really got on with, except for Mrs O'Brien on occasion. But she was beginning to realize there was more to him than just that. </p><p>In fact, she felt for him. Her life had probably been much easier than his, and she could never fully understand what he had gone through, she knew that. But she still empathized with him, and wanted to help him while he was hurting. She knew most people, if they had seen him crying, wouldn't have cared, maybe even thought he deserved it because of his harshness and his scheming ways. But she refused to look the other way. She wanted to make sure she was one of the people in Thomas Barrow's life who had been kind to him, instead of looking the other way when he was obviously hurting. </p><p>Anna then realized that the tea water was boiling. She poured the tea into a large white mug and made her way back into the sitting room, where Thomas was sitting and staring out the window with glassy eyes. She handed him the cup and he thanked her and drank a sip from it before setting it down. </p><p>"Thomas," she began, "I can't begin to understand how difficult this is for you to be dealing with, but if there is ever anything I can do to help, I want you to know that I am here for you if you need."</p><p>Thomas looked at Anna, trying to find the words to express how he was feeling. He hadn't expected anyone to take notice of his grief, least of all the lover of a man who hated him, and who he hated in return. He wanted to tell her that she was one of the only people who had ever really taken notice of him when he was in pain and had offered to help him and that he was so grateful for it she couldn't even begin to understand, but since he could barely even look at her without risk of crying again, he mumbled a quiet, "Thank you, Anna." </p><p>He began to speak again, having gotten a sudden bit of courage to tell her what he wanted to say, but suddenly tears gathered in his eyes and stuck to his eyelashes, making it hard to see. And before he let out the first word of his sentence, his voice cracked and he found himself unable to speak as another melancholic sob came from his mouth. His slight courage was gone, and he hated vulnerability, so he tried to hide his crying from her behind his hands and tried his best to stifle the choking noise he was making.</p><p>But of course she could still hear that and his shaky intake of breath and she moved next to him on the bench and put an arm around his shoulder, and then both. He wasn't objecting, in fact, the boy seemed to welcome her embrace, so she gently moved his head so that it laid on her shoulder. Tenderly, Anna began to run a hand through his silky black hair, and held his face with it, wiping away a few of his many tears. </p><p>Still crying vehemently, but able to speak slightly, Thomas managed to choke out the words: "Thank you for being so kind to me, Anna. You've no idea what it means to me." The woman embracing him did not respond, she simply tightened her hold on him and rubbed circles into his back and at that he lost even more of his composure as he cried harder still into her shoulder. </p><p>Thomas really hadn't realized how lonely and starved for affection he was until he received it and broke down as a result. But Anna was there with him that night, to hold him and to softly reassure him when he began crying over Lady Sybil again. Thomas knew they probably still wouldn't be the greatest of friends after this, but he did hope she knew how thankful he was for her being there for him. </p><p>After calming down slightly a few times and then weeping again, Thomas cried into Anna's shoulder until he exhausted himself and fell asleep around five thirty in the morning. </p><p>Anna watched as the sun rose, with Thomas Barrow sleeping quite peacefully in her arms. She softly kissed his forehead and sat there for another long while and let him sleep. Mrs Hughes eventually came in, but let Anna stay there, seeing the state Thomas had been in and that at the present moment he was fast asleep.</p><p>When Thomas woke up that morning, he did not speak except to quietly thank Anna again. But he didn't need to speak for her to know what he wanted to say. The two sat there for a while longer, since they were not exactly expected to work that day.</p><p>Though they barely spoke for the rest of the morning, Thomas was silently thanking Anna every moment he was awake and being held by her. </p><p>In his life, not many had been kind to him. She was one of the few.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>aahhh ok so i literally wrote this at 3am and it's basically my first fic so😭don't be mean lmaoo i just really wish anna and thomas's friendship had been explored a bit more in the show.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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